French Literature

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Ambiguous Adventure is a 1961 novel by author Cheikh Hamidou Kane. The plot of this novel mirrors much of Kane’s life, including his birth in Senegal and studies in Paris. The version used for this guide is the 2012 edition from Melville House Publishing.Ambiguous Adventure discusses the duality of man within the context of colonial and postcolonial societies. The novel splits the colonized and the colonizer into two distinct and opposing cultures: The former (the... Read Ambiguous Adventure Summary

A Moveable Feast was written by Ernest Hemingway and published posthumously in 1964, three years after his death. The title, A Moveable Feast, is a play on the term used for holy days that do not consistently fall on the same date every year. The memoir’s structure mirrors this concept, featuring 20 separate yet related stories that make up Hemingway’s own collection of inconsistent holy days. The memoir blends fact with fiction as Hemingway recalls... Read A Moveable Feast Summary

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Around the World in Eighty Days is from the Extraordinary Voyages series published in 1872 by French Victorian author Jules Verne. Recognized as an early example of the science fiction genre, the novel blends scientific content with artistic style. Verne is well known for writing adventure novels that accurately portray the use of complex travel-related technology developed during the Industrial Revolution such as steam engines and railways. His novels, at the same time, incorporate artistic... Read Around the World in Eighty Days Summary

A Simple Heart is a novella by Gustave Flaubert that appeared in his book Three Tales. The title has also been translated as A Simple Soul. The story follows the kind and loving maidservant Félicité from her youth to her death and details the many loves that she loses along the way, exploring themes of The Power of Social Class, The Value of a Personal Relationship With God, and The Omnipresence of Death. This guide... Read A Simple Heart Summary

Une Tempête, or A Tempest, is Aimé Césaire’s modern adaptation of William Shakespeare’s The Tempest. The play was first published in French in 1969 by Éditions de Seuil (Paris). A Tempest was performed in France, as well as in different countries in Africa and the Middle East and in the West Indies. Richard Miller translated the play into English in 1985, and the play premiered in America in 1991, at the Ubu Repertory Theater in... Read A Tempest Summary

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Beauty and the Beast by Gabrielle-Suzanna Barbot De Villeneuve first appeared in her collection of fairy tales La jeune américaine, et les contes marins (The Young American and Marine Tales) in 1740 and was abridged into a Christian moral tale by Jeanne-Marie Leprince de Beaumont in 1756. As a fairy-tale classic, Beauty and the Beast has been retold around the globe and in several mediums, including books, film, theater, and opera. The most well-known adaptations... Read Beauty and the Beast Summary

Becket or The Honor of God is a 1959 play by the French dramatist Jean Anouilh. It portrays a fictionalized version of the conflict that took place between King Henry II of England and the archbishop of Canterbury, Thomas Becket, in the 12th century. The English translation of the play premiered on Broadway in 1960 to great acclaim and was adapted into an Academy Award-winning film in 1964.The central conflict of Becket, which ended in... Read Becket Summary

Being and Nothingness: An Essay in Phenomenological Ontology (1943) by Jean-Paul Sartre is a foundational text for the philosophical movement of existentialism. Sartre, a 20th-century writer and philosopher, wrote Being and Nothingness while in a prisoner of war camp during World War II. Being and Nothingness addresses theories of consciousness, nothingness, self-identity, essences, and freedom. Sartre’s work builds upon a legacy of existentialist theories while defining and shaping them into a comprehensive ideology. He challenges... Read Being and Nothingness Summary

“Blue Beard,” by 17th-century French author Charles Perrault, is a short story in the fairy tale genre that relies on symbolism and concision to address themes of Female Agency, Transgressive Knowledge, and Patriarchal Control. First published in Perrault’s 1697 book Histoires ou Contes du Temps passé, avec des Moralités (meaning Stories or Tales from Times Past, with Morals), “Blue Beard” was found alongside other classic fairy tales that engage with similar themes, such as “Sleeping... Read Bluebeard Summary

“Boule de Suif,” which translates to “ball of fat” in English, is a short story by 19th-century French Naturalist writer Guy de Maupassant. Published in 1880, it was his first published story and is considered one of his greatest works. The story explores the power dynamics of class and gender while also painting a picture of the dismal final days of the Franco-Prussian War of 1870-1871 in Prussian-occupied France. All told, Maupassant wrote some 300... Read Boule De Suif Summary

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Candide, or Optimism was first published in 1759 by the French writer Voltaire (born Francois-Marie Arouet in 1694, died in 1778). The most famous and widely read work published by Voltaire, Candide is a satire that critiques contemporary philosophy, and specifically Leibnizian optimism, which posited the doctrine of the best of all possible worlds. Along with other French contemporaries, such as Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Denis Diderot, and Montesquieu, Voltaire published at the height of the French... Read Candide Summary

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Chocolat by Joanne Harris was first published in 1991. It is in the magical realism genre, presenting a realistic, recognizable world but with magical or fantastical elements, blurring the lines between realism and fantasy. Chocolat follows Vianne, a single mother who arrives in a small French village and opens a chocolate shop despite opposition from the local priest. Many of the villagers find new experiences and connections in her indulgent, magical chocolaterie.Chocolat won multiple awards... Read Chocolat Summary

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Crossing the Mangrove (1995) by Maryse Condé was originally published in French as Traversée de la Mangrove. It was translated to English by her husband Richard Philcox. Told from multiple perspectives, the novel opens with a mystery—that of Francis Sancher’s murder. As characters gather to speak at Sancher’s wake, they reveal his impact on the village of Rivière au Sel (“Salty River”), as well as why he returned to the village of his ancestors. While... Read Crossing the Mangrove Summary

Cyrano de Bergerac: An Heroic Comedy in Five Acts by Edmond Rostand was originally published in 1898. Rostand was a popular poet and playwright in France during his lifetime. Cyrano de Bergerac is a five-act verse drama—a tragic romance, set in France in the mid-1600s. It was far more popular than all of Rostand’s other works and has been performed and adapted countless times since its initial successful run.Cyrano de Bergerac explores themes of Unrequited... Read Cyrano de Bergerac Summary

Dangerous Liaisons is an epistolary novel (i.e., a story told through a series of letters) first published in 1782, seven years before the start of the French Revolution, by Pierre-Ambroise-François Choderlos de Laclos. The story revolves around the scheming and manipulative activities of two aristocrats, the Marquise de Merteuil and the Vicomte de Valmont. They take pleasure in seducing and ruining the reputations of others, using their wit and charm to manipulate those around them... Read Dangerous Liaisons Summary

Alexis de Tocqueville’s Democracy in America is a work of history and political philosophy published in two volumes, the first in 1835 and the second in 1840. Tocqueville embarked on his own political career in France but is best known for his contributions to history and political philosophy.The first volume is based on Tocqueville’s nearly yearlong sojourn in the United States, ostensibly to study its prisons and prison reform. In his introduction Tocqueville emphasizes that... Read Democracy in America Summary

Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison by Michel Foucault is a socio-political study of how power manifests in the Western penal system throughout history. Considered to be Foucault’s masterpiece, Discipline and Punish traces the history of how punishment and control were applied in Western society and how penal systems evolved to match changes in social sensibilities. Michel Foucault was a French historical philosopher and literary critic in the 20th century. Foucault’s work has... Read Discipline And Punish Summary

French philosopher Rene Descartes’s Discourse on Method and Meditations on First Philosophy constitute two halves of a single unified project. The former was first published in 1637, while the latter was first published in 1641. The full title of Discourse on Method is Discourse on the Method of Rightly Conducting One's Reason and of Seeking Truth in the Sciences. The full title of Mediations on First Philosophy is Meditations on First Philosophy in which the... Read Discourse on Method Summary

“Discourse on the Origin and Foundations of Inequality Among Men,” often known as the “Discourse on Inequality” or the “Second Discourse,” is an essay by the Swiss philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau published in 1765. This summary is based on The First and Second Discourses, edited and translated by Roger D. Masters and Judith R. Masters, and published by St. Martin’s Press in 1964.SummaryRousseau wrote the essay in response to a prize announced by the Academy of... Read Discourse on the Origin of Inequality Summary

Published in 1762, Emile, or On Education, by Jean-Jacques Rousseau, launched a revolution in thinking about how society should educate and rear children. Its main tenets—that children must learn in accordance with their developing minds, and that society impedes and corrupts their growth—became rallying cries for educators in France and elsewhere. The book’s assertion that children should not be taught religious doctrine caused an uproar. Along with Rousseau’s political treatise, The Social Contract (also published... Read Emile: On Education Summary

Endgame is a one-act, absurdist play by Samuel Beckett, first performed in 1957. The post-apocalyptic play portrays the farcical, tragic existence of four character who are caught in an unfulfilling routine. Beckett regarded the play as one of his greatest achievements. It has been adapted as an opera and as a short film.This guide uses the 2009 Faber and Faber edition. Plot SummaryThe curtain rises on a nearly bare stage: a room in Hamm’s home... Read Endgame Summary

Erec and Enide is a book-length poem written by French poet Chrétien de Troyes around the year 1170. The poem is one of Chrétien’s series of so-called Arthurian romances—a genre of poem in the Middle Ages that told the stories of the individuals associated with King Arthur’s court. His poems are among the earliest to refer to King Arthur and his knights, and Erec and Enide focuses on the adventures of the knight Erec. This... Read Erec and Enide Summary

In “Existentialism is a Humanism” (1945), French existentialist philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre attempts to convince an audience of philosophers and laypeople alike that his philosophy is neither pessimistic, nor relativist, nor quietist, nor subjectivist in the sense of presenting human beings as isolated individuals. He begins by elaborating Christians’ and Marxists’ criticisms of his ideas, then attempts to respond to each. In doing so, he focuses on the key formulation of existentialism, “existence precedes essence.” Then... Read Existentialism is a Humanism Summary

Flaubert’s Parrot is a novel by Julian Barnes, published in 1984. The book is a collection of biographical research, literary criticism, and philosophical considerations on the relationship between writers and their works, told from the perspective of Geoffrey Braithwaite, a 60-year-old retired doctor and widower. Having become something of an amateur expert on celebrated author Gustave Flaubert, Geoffrey searches for the truth about the French writer’s life. His quest for information revolves around determining which... Read Flaubert's Parrot Summary

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The Life of Gargantua and Pantagruel is a series of five novels written in French by François Rabelais in the 16th century. The novel-cycle relates the adventures of two giants in hyperbolic, satirical prose. Using humor ranging from slapstick to irony, Rabelais explores serious themes such as the development of education and religious reformation. The books are noted for their colorful, rich literary style, bursting with puns, allusions, and social commentary. An early example of... Read Gargantua And Pantagruel Summary

Germinal, written by French author Émile Zola, was originally published as a serial novel from November 1884 until February 1885. It was published fully in March 1885. The novel is the 13th of 20 in Zola’s Les Rougon-Macquart series, which focuses on the influence of heredity in two branches of a family during the Second French Empire. Considered one of Zola’s best novels, Germinal takes its name from a spring month in the French Republican... Read Germinal Summary

Published in 1939, Good Morning, Midnight is a semiautobiographical work written by Jean Rhys. A writer of Creole and Welsh descent, Rhys lived in the British West Indies before traveling to England to study. She married and traveled throughout Europe with her first husband, a journalist of French origin. This marriage ended in divorce. Sasha Jensen, the narrator of Good Morning, Midnight, also leaves London to follow her husband Enno. They eventually settle in Paris... Read Good Morning, Midnight Summary

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Published in 2011, Half-Blood Blues is the second book by Esi Edugyan, a black Canadian author. The novel won the Scotiabank Giller Prize in 2012 and was also shortlisted for the 2011 Man Booker Prize and the 2012 Orange Prize for Fiction. As historical fiction, the story examines the lives of a diverse group of jazz musicians during World War II as they balance personal jealousies with the need to help each other amid mounting... Read Half-Blood Blues Summary

The Heptameron is a collection of 72 short stories written in French by Marguerite de Navarre, sister of François I, and published posthumously in 1558, almost a decade after her death. It was originally designed to be a collection of 100 tales told over 10 days in the tradition of Giovanni Boccaccio’s The Decameron. However, at the time of the author’s death, she had only completed the first seven days and two stories of the eighth... Read Heptameron Summary

Part I relates the story of Tituba from her birth to her arrival in Salem. Part II begins with the witch trials and ends with Tituba’s execution in Barbados in the 1700s. The Epilogue, narrated by Tituba’s spirit, brings the story from the century of her death to that of the present-day reader. Following the Epilogue are two sections that Condé included in the original French publication: a Historical Note on the Salem witch trials... Read I, Tituba: Black Witch of Salem Summary

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Journey to the Center of the Earth was written by the French writer Jules Gabriel Verne (1828-1905), who is best known for Extraordinary Voyages, a series of science fiction/dystopian adventure stories that includes Journey to the Center of the Earth (1864) as well as Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea (1870) and Around the World in Eighty Days (1872). Verne was born in the French port city of Nantes and from a young age was... Read Journey To The Center Of The Earth Summary

Kiffe Kiffe Tomorrow is the first novel by Faëza Guène, who was only nineteen when it was published in 2004. The book was embraced and celebrated in France as reflecting the authentic voice of working-class young people, especially those of North-African descent growing up in the rundown suburban housing projects outside of Paris. Guène, the daughter of Algerian immigrants, grew up in the suburb of Bobigny, very close to Livry-Gargan, the location of the fictional... Read Kiffe Kiffe Tomorrow Summary

Lafayette in the Somewhat United States is a 2015 history of America written by Sarah Vowell. Vowell uses the perspective of the Marquis de Lafayette—a Frenchman who longed to fight with the Americans and win military glory—to give an irreverent, timely history of the United States, with relevant implications for America’s modern political situation.When Lafayette came to America, he was only 19. He was a wealthy, educated orphan who wanted to acquire personal honor and... Read Lafayette in the Somewhat United States Summary

Jean-Baptiste Poquelin, otherwise known as Molière, premiered his five-act comedy, Le Bourgeois Gentilhomme, in 1670 for the court of King Louis XIV at the Château of Chambord. The title, often translated as The Middle-Class Gentleman, is a contradiction in terms, since the word “gentleman” refers to a man who was born into nobility. Therefore, a bourgeois gentleman could not exist. Molière is one of the most well-known writers of French literature, and translations of his... Read Le Bourgeois Gentilhomme Summary

Le Cid is a five-act tragicomic play by Pierre Corneille, first performed in 1636 at the Théâtre du Marais in Paris. The plot is based on the Spanish play Las mocedadas del Cid by Guillén de Castro, which itself is based on the legend of Rodrigo Diaz de Vivar (1043-1099), a Castilian knight and Spanish national hero whose title “El Cid” is derived from the Arabic word for lord, sayyid. Corneille (1606-1684) is considered one... Read Le Cid Summary

Leo Africanus, a title also sometimes translated into English as Leo the African, is a work of historical fiction by the Lebanese-French journalist Amin Maalouf. It was first published in French as Léon, l’Africain in 1986, and the English translation by Peter Sluglett was published in 1992. The novel’s titular protagonist, Joannes Leo Africanus, whose birth name was al-Hasan ibn Muhammad al-Wazzan al-Fasi, was a real early-16th-century figure. Mainly, he was known for writing a... Read Leo Africanus Summary

Père Goriot is a novel by French author Honoré de Balzac that was published in serial form between 1834 and 1835. The novel tells the story of three intertwined characters, Goriot, Vautrin, and Rastignac. The book is part of Balzac’s novel sequence, La Comédie humaine, and is one of the author’s most celebrated works, exploring themes of Wealth and Social Class in Restoration France, The Corruption of Parent-Child Relationships, and The Hypocrisy of 19th-Century French... Read Le Père Goriot Summary

Les Misérables (in English, The Wretched or The Miserable Ones) is a novel by French author Victor Hugo, published for the first time in 1862. The story follows several characters through early- to mid-19th century France as they seek redemption for their sins and an escape from poverty. As well as being praised as one of the greatest novels of its time, Les Misérables has been adapted for many other formats, most notably a very... Read Les Miserables Summary

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Madame Bovary is a foundational realist novel. Authored by the esteemed French writer Gustave Flaubert (1821-1880), Madame Bovary was first released through serialization in 1856, and then formally published as Flaubert’s debut novel in 1857. Madame Bovary is one of the earliest examples of realism in literature and is credited with helping to develop the importance of psychological realism in literature. It is a love story, a vociferous critique of the ways in which society... Read Madame Bovary Summary

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Manon Lescaut, written by Abbé Antoine Francois Prévost and published in 1731, is perhaps best described as a novella. Originally just a small piece of Prévost’s seven-volume work, Memoirs and Adventures of a Man of Quality, it quickly became very popular and is now Prévost’s most well-known work. Memoirs is a fictional autobiography of Monsieur de Renoncour, who introduces Manon Lescaut, which is in turn narrated by the protagonist of the story, the Chevalier Des... Read Manon Lescaut Summary

Meditations on First Philosophy is a philosophical treatise by René Descartes. Originally published in Latin in 1641, the text would go on to influence European and global philosophical traditions. In this work, Descartes argues for the existence of God and the immortality of the soul. Two of its major contributions to philosophy are mind/body dualism and the famous phrase “I think, therefore, I am.” The book comprises six meditations wherein Descartes seeks to doubt all... Read Meditations on First Philosophy Summary

First published as a play in 2001, the novella Monsieur Ibrahim and the Flowers of the Koran is part of Franco-Belgian author Éric-Emmanuel Schmitt’s Cycle of the Invisible series consisting of unrelated stories on the themes of human connection, the transition from childhood to adulthood, and spirituality. Monsieur Ibrahim and the Flowers of the Koran has been performed on the stage and was adapted for the screen in 2003. This study guide refers to Marjolijn... Read Monsieur Ibrahim and the Flowers of the Koran Summary

Montaigne: Selected Essays comes from the pen of Michel de Montaigne, a 16th-century French jurist, advisor, and diplomat whose many adventures would make a compelling autobiography. Instead, Montaigne writes a series of short works that examine his innermost thoughts and feelings, attitudes and beliefs, preferences and daily habits. This would seem a dull topic, but Montaigne’s charm, wit, and wisdom shine through and make the mundane seem fascinating. His attitude is tolerant and open-minded for... Read Montaigne: Essays Summary

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Nausea is a philosophical novel by the French philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre. Originally published in 1938, the novel was first translated to English in 1949. Nausea takes place in the fictional French city of Bouville (“Mud Town”) and follows the day-to-day life of the reclusive historian Antoine Roquentin. Antoine lives completely alone, without friends or family, as he researches and writes a book on an 18th-century French aristocrat, the Marquis de Rollebon. Antoine’s daily interactions with... Read Nausea Summary

No Exit (1944) is a play by French philosopher, writer, and critic Jean-Paul Sartre. Sartre was drafted into the French army during World War II and spent nearly a year as a German prisoner of war. He then wrote and debuted No Exit in Paris while the city was still under German occupation and control. No Exit is comprised of one act which takes place in a single room in the afterlife, which the characters... Read No Exit Summary

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Written in 1823 by Claire de Duras, Ourika is a French novella based on real events about a Senegalese woman taken as a slave from her native country and raised in French high society. Ourika is one of the first European texts to feature a black protagonist, the psychological depth of whom promotes empathy with the racial “Other” and highlights the importance of nurture (versus nature) in human psychological development. In the Introduction, a young doctor is summoned to an... Read Ourika Summary

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Persian Letters (Lettres Persanes in French) is a literary work often termed one of the first epistolary novels. It was written by Charles de Secondat, a social thinker and political philosopher more commonly known by his aristocratic title Montesquieu. The narrative follows Usbek and Rica, two noblemen from Persia, who travel to France and recount their experiences there. The novel was first published anonymously in 1721 in Amsterdam for fear of public repercussions. Today it... Read Persian Letters Summary

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Edmund Burke’s Reflections on the Revolution in France, first published in 1790, is written as a letter to a French friend of Burke’s family, Charles-Jean-François Depont, who requests Burke’s opinion of the French Revolution to date. Burke is a well-connected politician and political theorist of the late eighteenth century, though this tract would become his first significant work on the subject. In Reflections on the Revolution in France, Burke speaks at length on the development... Read Reflections On The Revolution In France Summary

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Sarah’s Key is a novel told from multiple perspectives and points in time. At the outset of the novel, there are two narratives occurring: one in 1942, and the other in 2002. In 1942, Sarah’s family is taken, along with a host of other Jewish families, in the Vel’ d’Hiv’ roundup by the French police. Before they leave their home, Sarah hides her little brother, Michel, in a secret cupboard in the house. She grabs... Read Sarah’s Key Summary

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So Long A Letter follows the story of two women from Senegal, Ramatoulaye and Aissatou. They are childhood friends whose paths diverge in adulthood when Aissatou immigrates to America, leaving Ramatoulaye behind in Senegal. The novel is told in the epistolary style—that is, it is structured as a very long letter, written by Ramatoulaye to her friend, recounting the latest events in her life and reminiscing about their shared childhood and adolescence.The novel opens as... Read So Long a Letter Summary

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The Story of O is a 1954 erotic novel written by French writer Anne Desclos under the pen name Pauline Réage. Explicit and intense in tone, the work centers on the sexual life and fantasies of O, who engages in sadomasochistic play with her lover and several other figures, both men and women. At the time the novel was written, women in Europe faced an atmosphere that was repressive both sexually and professionally, leading many... Read Story of O Summary

Suite Française, by French-based Ukrainian writer Irène Némirovsky (born 1903), was published in the original French upon its discovery in 2004. However, Némirovsky started writing Suite in 1941, during the Nazi occupation of France, when those with a Jewish ethnic background like her faced persecution under the contemporary antisemitic regime. She and her husband, Michel Epstein, and their two young daughters, Denise and Élisabeth, had fled Paris for Issy-l’Évêque, a rural village in Burgundy. There... Read Suite Francaise Summary

Swann’s Way is a novel by French writer Marcel Proust. First published in 1913, it is the first volume in a series titled In Search of Lost Time. The series is famous for Proust’s exploration of memory and nostalgia and is widely considered among the greatest works of world literature. Swann’s Way has been adapted for film, television, and stage. This guide is based on an eBook version of the 1922 Henry Holt and Company... Read Swann's Way Summary

Tartuffe, also known as The Imposter or The Hypocrite, is a Neoclassical comedy written by French playwright, actor, writer, and director Molière, born as Jean-Baptiste Poquelin. It was first produced in 1664 in France. While King Louis XIV and the public enjoyed the play, religious groups, including the Catholic Church and members of the upper class, condemned it for its display of a seemingly religious character who preys on those around on him for his... Read Tartuffe Summary

In 1934, F. Scott Fitzgerald published his fourth and final (completed) novel, Tender Is the Night. Considered by the author to be his masterpiece, the book captures the same Jazz Age-prose style and Lost Generation philosophy as his previous novels, with the added depth of being arguably his most personal novel. Unlike The Great Gatsby, which was published in the middle of the 1920s, Tender Is the Night reflects upon the Roaring Twenties after they... Read Tender Is the Night Summary

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The Alice Network is the seventh novel by author Kate Quinn. First published in 2017, the book is classified as historical fiction. It became a New York Times and USA Today bestseller and was also listed as a Summer Pick by Good Housekeeping, Parade, Library Journal, and Reese Witherspoon’s Book Club. Quinn has written four novels in the Empress of Rome Saga and two books set during the Italian Renaissance. The Alice Network and her... Read The Alice Network Summary

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The Art of Courtly Love by Andreas Capellanus (Andrew the Chaplain, whose true identity remains unknown) was composed in Latin between 1186 and 1190. This study guide refers to the translation by John Jay Parry. The original Latin title, De amore, translates literally to “about” or “concerning” love, which reflects the text’s theme of inquiring into love—what it is, for whom is it possible, how to provoke it, how to sustain and increase it, and... Read The Art of Courtly Love Summary

The Attack is a 2005 book written by Yasmina Khadra, translated in 2006 by John Cullen and published by Anchor Books. It describes the aftermath of a suicide bomb attack in Tel Aviv and a man’s struggle to accept his wife’s involvement in the attack. Plot SummaryThe Introduction of the novel describes an unnamed narrator (later revealed as Dr. Amin Jaafari) watching a religious figure get into a car in a busy crowd. An explosion rocks... Read The Attack Summary

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In The Balcony, playwright Jean Genet uses the backdrop of a brothel to condemn the corruption and pettiness of which all people are capable. He is particularly scathing towards those in power. Outside of the brothel, the city—which is never named—is undergoing a “revolution” without a clear aim. For much of the play, it is unclear whether the revolution is real, or an elaborate extension of the fantasies being played out in the brothel, which... Read The Balcony Summary

La Cantatrice Chauve, translated to The Bald Soprano in English, is a 1950 absurdist play by Eugène Ionesco and a seminal work of the Theatre of the Absurd movement. Ionesco was famously inspired to write the play while learning English from an Assimil language primer, in which cliché English characters having artificial conversations and reciting basic facts of life soon began to take on absurd philosophical meaning for the playwright. The Bald Soprano was Ionesco’s... Read The Bald Soprano Summary

First published in 1938, C.L.R. James’s The Black Jacobins: Toussaint L’Ouverture and the San Domingo Revolution examines the Haitian Revolution of 1791 to 1804, with emphasis on the role of slave-turned-commander Toussaint L’Ouverture. As a historical treatise, the book aims to unfold the inner workings of the Revolution, with the socialist views of the author, a Trinidadian historian, framing the analysis. Readers have come to recognize The Black Jacobins as not only a crucial exploration... Read The Black Jacobins Summary

The Book of Salt is a 2003 novel by Monique Truong. Set in the 1920s and 1930s, the novel focuses on Binh, a young, gay Vietnamese cook in French-colonized Vietnam. Binh flees Saigon, and after spending time at sea as a cook, he lands in Paris and eventually answers an ad for a position in the household of Gertrude Stein and her lover/companion, Alice B. Toklas.Binh navigates the limitations of colonialism while exploring his emerging... Read The Book of Salt Summary

Marie-Henri Beyle, writing under his penname Stendhal, published his last complete work, the novel The Charterhouse of Parma, in French in 1839. It tells the story of an Italian nobleman who fights in the Napoleonic Wars (1803-1815) and then navigates the fraught political dynamics of the era known as the Italian Restoration (1814-1848). This was a time when the memory of revolution was repressed and power seemed to many to operate on caprice and intrigue... Read The Charterhouse of Parma Summary

The Count of Monte Cristo is an adventure novel by the French writer Alexandre Dumas, originally published in serial form between 1844 and 1846, which is reflected in the novel’s episodic structure, large cast of characters, and frequent shifts of scene. The novel has been translated into English several times, usually in abridged form. This guide follows the translation and abridgment by Lowell Blair, first published in 1956.Content Warning: The source material includes suicide, suicidal... Read The Count of Monte Cristo Summary

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This memoir is a series of autobiographical vignettes that was composed over the span of two months (July-August, 1996) by Jean-Dominique Bauby, with the help of a publishing assistant named Claude. He dispatches from room 119 of the Naval Hospital at Berck-sur-Mer, France. The vignettes do not follow a chronological order, and interweave recollections of various eras in Bauby’s life with his contemporary reality. Bauby suffered a massive stroke on December 8, 1995 that left... Read The Diving Bell and the Butterfly Summary

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The Elegance of the Hedgehog by Muriel Barbery was published in 2006 and translated by Alison Anderson into English for publication in 2008. The novel has been translated into more than 40 languages and was a major bestseller in France. The novel was adapted into a film called The Hedgehog (Le Hérisson) in 2009 to critical acclaim. The Elegance of the Hedgehog follows the narrative point of view of two erudite narrators: Renée, a concierge... Read The Elegance of the Hedgehog Summary

Published in 1948 in the wake of World War II, The Ethics of Ambiguity by French philosopher Simone de Beauvoir (1908-1986) is a significant contribution to existentialist thought and outlines a practical system of ethics. Human freedom is of the utmost concern to the existentialist, and de Beauvoir argues that with human freedom comes ethical responsibility, countering those philosophers and skeptics who say that existentialism does not give practical guidance on how to live our... Read The Ethics Of Ambiguity Summary

The Fall (French: La Chute) is a 1956 novel by French author and philosopher Albert Camus, who won the Nobel Prize for Literature the following year. It is the last novel Camus published before his death in 1960. Camus’s work deals with absurdism, the philosophical stance that life has no higher meaning. The Fall is told in first-person perspective by the protagonist Jean-Baptiste Clamence as he tells his life story over a series of five... Read The Fall Summary

The Family Under the Bridge is a work of realistic historical fiction set in Paris in the early 1900s. It was originally published in 1958 and then reprinted in 1989. The author, Natalie Savage Carlson, is an American of French-Canadian descent who spent many years living in Paris. The book, which follows an unhoused man as he meets and befriends a young family, won a Newbery Honor Award in 1959 and a Horn Book Fanfare... Read The Family Under The Bridge Summary

The Garden of Eden is a novel by American author Ernest Hemingway, who is regarded as one of the most important writers of the 20th century. Hemingway had worked on the novel for 15 years at the time of his death in 1961. It was published posthumously in 1986. Though controversial, the novel has been heralded as an important example of Hemingway’s work and was adapted into a film of the same name in 2008... Read The Garden of Eden Summary

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The Great Cat Massacre and Other Episodes in French Cultural History is a nonfiction essay collection published in 1984 by American historian Robert Darnton. Using folktales, oral histories, letters, and police reports, Darnton explores the attitudes and behaviors of 18th-century French men and women, from indigent peasants to the most celebrated minds of the Enlightenment. The book takes its title from a perplexing incident in the late 1730s, in which a group of Parisian printers’... Read The Great Cat Massacre Summary

“The Guest,” a short story by French author and philosopher Albert Camus, was first published in 1957 in his only short story collection, Exile and the Kingdom. Having also published The Stranger, The Plague, The Myth of Sisyphus, and The Fall, Camus, an existentialist writer who wrote extensively in support of the French Resistance, was awarded the Nobel prize in Literature in 1957. In crafting his works, Camus took inspiration from French Algeria, where he... Read The Guest Summary

Michel Foucault was a French philosopher and theorist whose most significant works were first published in the 1960s and 1970s. Throughout his career, he examined the mechanisms of power and challenged accepted historical narratives, working to show how institutional power shapes the field of possible knowledge to its own advantage. The History of Sexuality, published in three volumes between 1976 and 1984—with a fourth volume published posthumously, in draft form, in 2018—examines the development of... Read The History of Sexuality Summary

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The Hunchback of Notre-Dame is an 1831 gothic novel by French author Victor Hugo, originally published under the title Notre-Dame de Paris. Set in 15th-century France, the novel concerns the intertwined stories of Quasimodo, Esmeralda, and Archdeacon Claude Frollo. The story has been adapted many times for theater, television, and film, including an animated film by Disney released in 1996.This guide refers to the 2009 Oxford Classics edition of the novel, translated from French to... Read The Hunchback of Notre-Dame Summary

Le Malade Imaginaire, typically translated as The Imaginary Invalid, opened in Paris in 1673 and was the final play written by the famous French satirist Molière. Molière wrote frequently about doctors, and six of his comedies deal significantly with medical practitioners. The trope of the doctor who is as greedy and as pompous as he is inept—often speaking a jumble of Latin and Greek to prove his intelligence—is a stock character of commedia dell’arte, the... Read The Imaginary Invalid Summary

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The Lais of Marie de France is a collection of 12 romantic narratives—known as Breton Lais—composed in the late 12th century and credited to the French-English poet Marie de France. The lay or lai is a short tale of octosyllabic rhyming couplets which is generally 600–1000 lines long. It can be accompanied by music and is typical of Brittany, a Northern French region with strong Celtic influences. Themes of love, chivalry and the supernatural are... Read The Lais of Marie de France Summary

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The Letters of Abelard and Heloise tells the story of two 12th-century French scholars and lovers. The tragic ending of their love affair leads both to take religious vows, one entering a convent and the other, a monastery. Nearly a decade after their separation, the two reconnect and begin to correspond through letters. Their letters reveal that Abelard has found peace as a monk, even though he is constantly embroiled in charges of heresy on... Read The Letters Of Abelard And Heloise Summary

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Nina George’s romance novel The Little Paris Bookshop was originally published in German in 2013 and was translated to English by Simon Pare in 2015. The story follows Jean Perdu, a bookseller, as he travels from Paris to Avignon on his floating bookstore, the Literary Apothecary. Perdu leaves Paris on a whim after receiving heartbreaking news about the death of his former lover. Perdu is joined in his travels by Max Jordan, a bestselling author... Read The Little Paris Bookshop Summary

Antoine de Saint-Exupéry drew heavily on his own experiences when writing his 1943 novella, The Little Prince (Le Petit Prince). Like the story's first-person narrator, Saint-Exupéry was a pilot, and the inspiration for the book's central events came from his own 1935 crash-landing in the Sahara Desert. As the story begins, the narrator is still a young child showing off his drawings of boa constrictors eating elephants to the adults around him. The adults react... Read The Little Prince Summary

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Jean Genet’s play The Maids (or Les Bonnes) premiered in Paris at the Théâtre de l’Athénée in 1947. By this time, Genet was already an established novelist and playwright, but this one-act play was his first foray into the conventions and aesthetics of the movement now known as the Theatre of the Absurd. The Maids is based on the true story of the Papin sisters, two maids who shocked France in 1933 by murdering their... Read The Maids Summary

Among the most widely read and translated of all French authors, Alexandre Dumas lived and worked in the 19th century. A playwright, journalist, and travel writer, Dumas is likely best known for his historical fiction, much of which was initially published in serialized form. Along with The Count of Monte Cristo, his most enduring works are the three books that make up his D’Artagnan Romances: The Three Musketeers, Twenty Years After, and The Vicomte de... Read The Man In The Iron Mask Summary

“The Man Who Planted Trees” is a short story published in 1953 by French author Jean Giono. It chronicles a shepherd’s three-decade-long effort to reforest a barren tract of land in Southeastern France. Spanning a time period shortly before World War I until shortly after World War II, the story is both an antiwar allegory and an environmental allegory. “The Man Who Planted Trees” inspired numerous adaptations across various mediums, including a 1988 Academy Award-winning... Read The Man Who Planted Trees Summary

The Miser, by Jean-Baptiste Poquelin (better known by his stage name, Molière) was written in 1668 and was first performed at the theatre of the Palais-Royal in Paris on September 9th, 1668. The five-act play, which takes much of its inspiration from Plautus’ Latin comedy Aulularia (or The Pot of Gold), is a comedy centered on a penny-pinching old miser, Harpagon, who schemes to make more money by arranging marriages for himself and his two... Read The Miser Summary

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One of the monuments of 20th-century philosophy, The Myth of Sisyphus, by Nobel Prize-winning author Albert Camus, delves deeply into the emptiness of life and how to cope with it. Published in France in 1942, during the darkest days of World War II, the book resonated strongly with French readers and soon had a worldwide following. The 2018 edition of the 1955 English translation by Justin O’Brien forms the basis for this study guide.The book’s... Read The Myth of Sisyphus Summary

Considered a master of the short story, French author Guy de Maupassant (1850-1893) wrote over 300 stories, one of the most famous being “The Necklace.” De Maupassant focused his writing on daily life and the observation of human nature, a topic he approached with a strong sense of pessimism. “The Necklace,” published in 1884, illustrates his pessimistic outlook through its focus on irony, conflict, and the destructive power of materialism and greed. The story has... Read The Necklace Summary

The Nightingale is a best-selling historical fiction novel written by Kristin Hannah and published in 2015. Hannah is known for her other popular historical fiction works, including Winter Garden (2010) and The Four Winds (2021). The Nightingale, which takes places in France during World War II, was inspired by the life and memoirs of Andrée de Jongh, a Belgian woman who survived the war and organized the Comet Line, an underground effort that allowed countless... Read The Nightingale Summary

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Queen Elizabeth I enacted laws that persecuted Catholics in England; in response, some daring inventors created secret hiding places within Catholic homes to hide the priests from raids. In the 2013 novel, The Paris Architect, Charles Belfour transposes this real historical event into a new context: hiding Jewish people from German forces in Occupied France. The story centers on an architect in Paris who undertakes the dangerous work of designing invisible hiding places, makes new... Read The Paris Architect Summary

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The Perfect Nanny is a thriller written by Franco-Moroccan journalist and author Leïla Slimani. Published in 2016, the novel is inspired by the 2012 murders of two white American children in New York City by their caretaker, a naturalized American citizen born in the Dominican Republic. Slimani resets the narrative in Paris, France, and the nanny she depicts is a native French woman and white. Slimani reframes the crime to explore themes of racism, classicism... Read The Perfect Nanny Summary

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The Phantom of the Opera by Gaston Leroux is a Gothic mystery novel first published serially in 1910. The novel follows a “ghost” who haunts the Paris Opera and the mysterious incidents attributed to this figure. The characters and the narrator himself try to uncover the secret of this ghost, who is really a masked man infatuated opera singer, Christine Daaé. The novel has been adapted into several formats, most notably a 1925 silent film... Read The Phantom of the Opera Summary

The Plague, a philosophical novel by French author Albert Camus, was first published in 1947 and immediately won the prix des Critiques, a literary prize awarded to Francophone authors by the French publishing industry. Having also published The Stranger, The Myth of Sisyphus, and The Fall, Camus, an absurdist writer who wrote extensively in support of the French Resistance against Nazi Germany’s occupation of France, was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1957. In... Read The Plague Summary

Gaston Bachelard (1884-1962) was born into a family of shoemakers and worked his way up from mail carrier to philosopher. He earned his Doctor of Letters from the Sorbonne in 1927, originally studying the intersection of science and philosophy. Bachelard’s The Poetics of Space attracts readers of all types, including architects, poets, and other creative people. The Poetics of Space represents his journey into the philosophy of the imagination. Bachelard published The Poetics of Space... Read The Poetics of Space Summary

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Madame de Lafayette published The Princesse de Clèves anonymously in 1678. She was acquainted with the manners of Louis XIV’s court, and she drew upon her court experiences when writing the book, adding to the book’s historical fidelity. It was a great success upon its publication. As Robin Buss (whose Penguin Classics translation provides the source for this summary) writes in her Chronology of Mme de Lafayette’s life, The Princess de Clèves started fierce speculation... Read The Princesse de Clèves (The Princess of Cleves) Summary

W. Somerset Maugham (1874-1965) wrote The Razor’s Edge in 1944. The novel’s title comes from a quotation translated from the Katha Upanishad, with the assistance of Christopher Isherwood: “Rise, wake up, seek the wise and realize. The path is difficult to cross like the sharpened edge of the razor." The story has been adapted for film twice, once in 1946 starring Tyrone Power and again in 1984 with Bill Murray. When World War I air... Read The Razor's Edge Summary

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In The Return of Martin Guerre, Natalie Zemon Davis, historian and professor at Princeton University, reconstructs the sixteenth century legend of Martin Guerre, a man with a wooden leg who arrived to a courthouse in Toulouse just in time to denounce an imposter who had stolen his wife, his family, and his inheritance. Arnaud du Tilh, a clever and persuasive peasant with a somewhat sordid past, had indeed taken Martin’s identity, and he nearly escaped... Read The Return of Martin Guerre Summary

The Romance of the Rose, or Roman de la Rose in the original French, is an allegorical poem written between the years 1225 and 1278 by two authors, Guillaume de Lorris and Jean de Meun. De Lorris wrote the first three chapters of the work from 1225-1230, and de Meun added nine additional chapters from approximately 1269-1278. Not much is known about either author, but the poem became a foundational piece of medieval literature, particularly... Read The Romance of the Rose Summary

The Room on Rue Amélie (2018) is a historical fiction novel by American author Kristin Harmel. The novel follows the experiences of Ruby Henderson, an American immigrant in Paris, during World War II. Ruby eventually becomes involved in the French Resistance and forms a close friendship with Charlotte, whose Jewish identity leaves her vulnerable to persecution. Both women navigate the risks of resistance and the nature of love in a time of war. The novel... Read The Room on Rue Amélie Summary

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Published in 1905, The Scarlet Pimpernel, by Baroness Emma Orczy, is a historical romance adventure novel about a wealthy English baronet with a secret life as a hero who rescues the innocent from the French Reign of Terror. Told mainly from the viewpoint of his wife, the book—based on the successful London play of the same name—birthed a series of Scarlet Pimpernel novels, movies, and TV productions. It ushered in the secret-identity genre of adventure... Read The Scarlet Pimpernel Summary

The Social Contract is a political treatise published in 1762 by the Genevan philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau. Rousseau argues about the best ways to establish and maintain political authority without unduly sacrificing personal liberty. He builds off 17th-century philosopher Thomas Hobbes’s idea of the “social contract” between the people and sovereign authority, departing from Hobbes in his views on monarchy and the natural state of humankind. The Social Contract was enormously influential on political thought before... Read The Social Contract Summary

Guy Debord’s 1967 philosophy text, The Society of the Spectacle, analyzes the phenomena of alienation and argues that alienation’s root cause is located within the economic, political, and cultural spheres of modern society. While previous periods of capitalist development saw the hyper-exploitation of workers, the period of capitalism after WWII saw an improvement in labor conditions for greater numbers of workers in society. However, for Debord, this improvement in work conditions did not translate to... Read The Society of the Spectacle Summary

Composed at the turn of the 12th century, La Chanson de Roland (translated as The Song of Roland) recounts the events surrounding the Battle of Roncevaux Pass in 778 CE. The Song of Roland is likely the oldest surviving poem in French and was immensely popular across Europe during the Middle Ages. The poem establishes many tropes and themes that have come to characterize medieval chivalric romances, but Roland is also an epic poem in... Read The Song of Roland Summary

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The Stranger is a short novel by French author Albert Camus, published in 1942. The story combines themes of absurdism and existentialism and is considered a classic of 20th-century literature. This guide uses the translation by Stuart Gilbert.Plot SummaryMeursault, a young man living in Algiers, receives a message which tells him that his mother has died. He takes a bus to the retirement home where she lived and stays with her body before the funeral... Read The Stranger Summary

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The Three Musketeers (1844), by French novelist and playwright Alexandre Dumas, is a novel that borrows tropes from the swashbuckling genre, historical fiction, and romance to recount the adventures of a group of king’s guard who face off against the machinations of nefarious political factions set on destabilizing the monarchy. It was first published through serialization in 1844 to great popularity. Though set in the mid-1600s, the novel connected with the philosophical underpinnings of the... Read The Three Musketeers Summary

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Tropic of Cancer (1934) was Henry Miller’s third novel after the never-published Clipped Wings (1922) and Moloch: or, This Gentile World (1928). Miller referred to it as his “Paris book,” and it was wildly controversial for its candid depictions of sex. It was the subject of legal disputes and censorship attempts for decades, though ironically it has never been out of print. Tropic of Cancer brings together various genres, including autobiography, memoir, manifesto, and philosophical... Read Tropic of Cancer Summary

Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea is a science fiction adventure novel by French author Jules Verne. It was originally published in serialized form in 1869 under the title Vingt mille lieues sous les mers, and later as a book in 1870. In 1873, the first English-language translation was released. The book was highly acclaimed at the time of its publication and was one of several successful novels by Verne. Others include Journey to the... Read Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea Summary

Ubu Roi, a play by Alfred Jarry, debuted in Paris in December 1896. The play’s opening night at the Théâtrede l’Oeuvre was also its closing night, as a commotion—often described as a “riot”—broke out amongst the audience, who were accustomed to naturalist theatre and were horrified by the play’s shocking and crude nature. Nonetheless, the play has gone on to be seen as a deeply-influential work of theatre, and is cited as one of the precursors to modernism and... Read Ubu Roi Summary

Jacques Poulin’s Volkswagen Blues is a road-trip novel in the tradition of Jack Kerouac’s masterpiece, On the Road. Originally published in French in 1984, it chronicles the North American journey of Jack Waterman, a francophone writer from Quebec City, and a young woman of French and Indigenous American ancestry named La Grande Sauterelle. They are both on a quest of self-discovery, but their expedition from Quebec to San Francisco is also an allegory for Quebec’s... Read Volkswagen Blues Summary

Waiting for Godot is a two-act play by Samuel Beckett, translated from Beckett’s own French script. First performed in English in 1953, it has been heralded as one of the most important plays of the 20th Century. It is a central work of absurdism, though it was not originally received with much acclaim. In fact, the play’s frank treatment of the body provoked some horror in its initial audiences. The play begins with two friends, Vladimir... Read Waiting for Godot Summary

Completed in the year 1181, Yvain, Or the Knight of the Lion is an epic poem by Chrétian De Troyes that tells the story of Yvain, one of King Arthur’s knights, and the many great deeds he performs as he attempts to earn the love of the Lady Laudine. One of the founding stories of the Arthurian legend, Yvain paints a vivid picture of the knightly code of chivalry during the Middle Ages. Its high... Read Yvain, or the Knight With the Lion Summary